DiaKine Therapeutics' Anti-Diabetes Drug Featured in U.S. Research Report
"Our LSF research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which continues to provide funding for our basic research and clinical trial work," said Dr. Jerry Nadler, DiaKine's Chief Scientific Officer. "We believe that LSF and other oral medications we are developing offer real hope for potentially eradicating diabetes."
The Evaluation Report on the Special Statutory Funding Program for Type 1 Diabetes Research cited the use of LSF as a means to better preserve islet cells prior to being transplanted and as a post-operative therapy to protect transplanted islets from autoimmune rejection. DiaKine has since commercialized the islet cell preservation media into IsletLife-LSF Media 1. IsletLife-LSF Media can potentially improve the success rate of the procedure. The post-operative drug is scheduled for a Phase 2 human clinical trial.
Drugs being developed by DiaKine modulate inflammatory cytokines, part of the body's immune system, which sometimes mistakenly attack normal organs and tissue and cause diseases such as diabetes and related complications such as kidney and eye disease. Research by Dr. Nadler and his collaborators published in 2006 showed that controlling certain cytokines can arrest the progression of, or reverse, type 1 diabetes in an animal model.
DiaKine therapies may improve the function of insulin-producing cells and preserve any that remain in the pancreas after initial diagnoses, thereby halting the progression of newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. Those patients with established diabetes may be relieved from the lifelong burden that results from this disease by providing them with new insulin producing cells through either transplantation or regeneration and modulating the immune system with these new medications. Protecting new insulin-producing cells from a new immunological attack may reverse diabetes and prevent the resulting complications associated with this dreadful disease.
About DiaKine
DiaKine Therapeutics, Inc. is a development-stage company commercializing novel immune modulators initially targeting the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as diabetes and related complications. Additional therapeutics under development by DiaKine include: adjunct therapy to islet cell transplants, halting the progression of type 1 diabetes in newly diagnosed adults, treatment and prevention of Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults (LADA), treatment and prevention of insulin requiring type 2 diabetic, treatment and prevention of diabetes complications. For more information, visit www.diakine.com.
Contact
DiaKine Therapeutics, Inc.
Bill Wells, 404-281-7490
Posted: October 2007
